I Believe in … His Only Son

Writing from St. Leonard’s in 1857, Charles Kingsley said, “‘ No difficult texts shall rob me of Jesus Christ as the Son of God. In Him I find a counterpart of Him in whom we live, and move, and have our being, in Him I worship the abysmal God.” In this faith he lived and died. When he lay dying at Eversley Rectory, his wife apparently dying in another chamber, he exclaimed, with the light of eternity on his face, “Only in the faith of Jesus Christ, as Son of God, can the most educated and the’ simplest find peace.” “‘ And so,” in the words of Mrs. Kingsley, “‘he passed into the unseen, a noble, unabashed, and true knight of Jesus, affirming his belief in Jesus Christ, His only Son.”

All who believe in Christ are sons. Because we are such, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba, Father” (see Gal. vi. 1-7). But our sonship is separated by an infinite chasm from the Sonship of Jesus. Peter was right in his great confession, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” We are

53 sons, He is the Son; we are born again, He is the “Only Begotten Son.” Those who lived with Him during His earthly life beheld His glory as of the only begotten of the Father, and it was because He was the only begotten Son which was in the bosom of the Father that He was able to declare Him (see John i. 14-18; iii. 16-18; 1 John iv. 9).

All that is meant in the unique relationship of the Son of the Father it is impossible for mortal man to know or say. But when we utter the sublime definition of God’s nature, ‘* God is Love,” it follows of necessity that from all eternity there must have been one to love and one to be loved, and a spirit of love uniting these twain. It would seem as if the doctrine of the Trinity were implicated whenever we think of God as Eternal Love. It has always been true that the Father loved the Son before the foundation of the world, that the Son has loved the Father even to the laying down of His life, and that the blessed Spirit has been the Eternal Spirit, because He also is Love (John xvii. 24; xiv. 31; Heb. ix. 14).

Our Lord was deeply conscious of His Divine Sonship. How far He had understood its entire significance during His early years we cannot tell, but from the moment the Voice of God through the open sky, declared Him as His beloved Son there was no doubt or hesitancy. He said that God was His own Father, making Himself equal with God (John v. 18). He said that no one knew the Father save the Son (Matt. xi. 27). When surrounded by His foes He did not hesitate to claim Sonship in a special sense even to unity (John x. 33-38). We cannot read the marvellous prayer of John xvii. without realizing that He felt His Sonship to be unique and eternal. It is because of His own deep consciousness of this relationship that we profess our belief in the only begotten Son.

The Apostle affirms that the truth of this affirmation was declared with power at His resurrection (Rom. i. 4), and more than once quotes Psa. ii. 7 as being realized when the First-born was brought into the world (Acts iii. 13; Heb. i. 5, 6). Therefore we need have no hesitation in addressing Him in the majestic words of the ancient psalm, “Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of Thy Kingdom.”